sweet turning sour and untouchable
by qaby
Summary: Jenny-centric. 3x22. "She hates how she can't count off the times she's betrayed someone she cares about on one hand."


**A/N: **I was randomly inspired, and that's my explanation. Jenny's my girl and I love her to death, and I definitely believe she's been through one hell of a journey. Title comes from the song, "My Skin" by Natalie Merchant, which _oh my God_, is legit, _so_ beautiful.

* * *

Jenny hates the truth.

It's blunt, it's cold, it's harsh, and most of the times, it isn't what she wants to hear. The truth has torn her heart in two and made her question her values too many times in the past, and sometimes, she lies awake at night, wondering if she'd be happier living a lie. It's vain, but that doesn't stop her from considering it.

She thinks back to a time when she'd wake up to the smell of waffles and Dan discussing literature while her father rants about his rockstar past, and something akin to longing wraps like tendrils around her heart. She welcomes it immediately.

Her life was a lie back then, as well.

They weren't happy. Alison's absence ghosted around their smiles or laughter, and they found that the joy they were so desperately trying to convey never quite reached their eyes.

Alison didn't want Rufus, didn't even give Dan and Jenny a second thought before packing her suitcases and boarding the next train to Hudson, where what's-his-face was waiting for her with open arms.

That was the truth.

For a while, Jenny's arms remained spread wide, willing to forgive her mother for all the tears, all the heartache she's put her through, but over the years, her arms have been slowly closing, moving to wrap around herself to keep from falling apart when she realized that she simply _didn't care_.

It's the first time she'd been dismissed so easily, and when she traveled the line of deceit and betrayal with Blair Waldorf to serve as a matter of hierarchy, she realized that it wouldn't stop there.

That was around the time she started spinning her own web of lies - pretending like she was just fine with Eric's sexual orientation when she went home and cried for hours because he was _gay_ and she thought she _loved_ him. Acting as if she was perfectly fine with her brother dating Serena van der Woodsen when she wasn't, because he got this simple gateway into the world of the Upper East Side in the form of his girlfriend and he didn't even _want_ it, and she _did_, so _so_ badly. Putting on a fake smile as her father went through all the drama with Lily, because it made her realize that he was moving on from her mother, and she didn't want to stop living the façade of a happy family when it was all she'd ever known.

Nate made facing the truth easier.

He'd support her, the lingering electricity of his fingers on the small of her back providing strength for her to continue and accept the fact that she wasn't going to have a successful fashion career at fifteen. He was always there for her to fall back on, and she stopped appreciating it right around the time she realized she loved him.

Love, another thing Jenny loathes. It means vulnerability, means letting someone see the side you refuse to show. It means putting your fucking heart on the line. But still, his lapis lazuli eyes, his shaggy mess of perfect hair, his hearty laugh - it all enticed her, and she was reigned in, suddenly understanding why Blair refused to give up on this boy, why Vanessa wouldn't shut up about how amazing he was.

A small part of her hates him for it, and the bigger part of her wishes he'd feel the same way. And then she smiles; it's cynical and twisted and wrong. She loves him and she can't have him, and lying makes everything so much easier, makes her raw wounds seal up so tightly that not even his harsh words or his dismissal can penetrate the barrier she's built.

It doesn't mean she doesn't wish she'd never gone after Vanessa.

Damien made lying her world.

She loved him for it; adored the way he'd discreetly pass her the bag of white powder while her father was in the room, the way he'd text her at midnight and tell her to sneak out, the way she hid his existence in her life from everyone she knew for the better part of two months. It was something entirely foreign to Jenny, and she found that she couldn't stay away.

Not like she wanted to, anyway.

She'd destroyed her relationships with Eric, with her father, with Nate, with _everyone_ for him. Nevermind the fact that he broke off what they had when she wouldn't put out. He made her heart pound and her skin tingle and shivers run up her spine whenever he so much as looked her way, and she could never get enough.

He was her drug.

She'd gladly relapse any day.

Chuck made her look in the mirror and analyze her reflection.

She'll _always_ hate him for it. Sleeping with him was undoubtedly the worst decision of her life, because it made all the things she'd been burying deep inside herself unleash themselves, and a throb encircles her head at the force at which they attack her conscience. She helped a man cheat on the one he loves, she'd been the _other woman_.

She hates how she can't count off the times she's betrayed someone she cares about on one hand.

It reminds her how fucked up she is.

The first thing she does when she manages to escape Chuck's apartment is run to the restroom. She gulps as she takes in her reflection and bites her lip to keep it from trembling when tears spill recklessly down her cheeks. Her lips are swollen and her cheeks are flushed. Her hair is in a wild disarray and she closes her eyes as flashes of skin and ecstasy run through her brain.

Her hand clenches, and she raises it to punch the mirror. Her teeth grind together when the glass quakes, and she rubs absentmindedly at her welting knuckles, ignoring the pain shooting up her right arm.

She's defective.

Jenny almost wants to laugh, because, _ain't that the truth_?

* * *

**Reviews are love.**


End file.
